The Heartless (The Sublime Electricity Book #2)

by Pavel Kornev

  "You thought I had Emile's papers. Now, you know that isn't the case. Why take the risk?"

  "This isn't only about you, Viscount. The Convent needs to be taught a lesson. I need to tear the poisonous fangs from these scoundrels while I still can. Today, they aren't expecting a trap. They're sure of their success. This will make their defeat all the more bitter. We'll get a breather and we can take advantage of that."

  "You're that sure of your own powers?"

  "This isn’t my first time. And also, better to die in a skirmish than to live out a century watching everything fall to pieces. Today, we can still fix something. Tomorrow, that will not be possible."

  I nodded in silence, having begun to expect that this could all be explained by the Duke's desire to die in battle. The old man didn't look capable of standing up to a demon.

  The illustrious gentleman sensed my doubts, turned away from the window and declared with an unconcerned smile:

  "Chin up, Viscount! An old gambler like me always has an ace up his sleeve. I'll be ready when the underworld fiend appears."

  "Are you able to sense the demon's approach?"

  "It's easier than you think," Duke Talm replied, waving carelessly as he pointed at the chandelier filling the whole room with bright light. "See?"

  The light of the electric candles had already been uneven and flickering for some time.

  "Power fluctuations," I supposed.

  "Demons and electricity don't pair well together," the old man laughed. "Wherever you find one, there's no room for the other."

  "I'm not convinced."

  "Well, then trust my experience."

  At that moment, the doors behind me opened loudly, and I nearly jumped in the seat from surprise.

  "Calm yourself, Viscount!" the illustrious man said. He then asked the detective sergeant who'd just entered: "What of the armored carriage?"

  "I got it, your radiance," the investigator said. There was a whole puddle of water pouring down off his rain-slicker onto the parquet floor.

  I looked around and inquired:

  "What about the shop owner?"

  The detective sergeant looked at the Duke and, only after a positive nod from his boss, he answered:

  "No one opened the door. I had to break in."

  "No one noticed?"

  "In this weather?" the detective laughed, wiping his red mustache and looking at the chandelier. "Has it begun?"

  "It will soon," the Duke confirmed.

  "Isn't it time for you to get ready?"

  "I'm about to get started."

  The electric candles in the chandelier started flickering more and more. Their light became dim and sparse. The shadows in the corners grew thicker. I got uncomfortable. I now wanted to get out of here fast. The last thing I wanted was to play the live bait for a demon.

  Just then, some of the bulbs went out. The others started glowing many times stronger, filling with an unbearable light and starting to burst with a quiet tinkling sound, one after the next. A few seconds, and the room was immersed in darkness. Just one bulb was still on: the one on the buffet table; the illustrious man's talent did not depend on electrical fluctuations whatsoever.

  I stood up from the chair, deciding whether or not to high-tail it out under cover of darkness, but then I saw the flicker of a gun's steel in the gloom.

  "Back in your seat!" the detective sergeant demanded, aiming his issued revolver at me.

  "Calm yourself, Viscount!" Duke Talm laughed quietly, and immediately the electric candles in the chandelier filled with an unnatural white light; those which hadn't burned out, that is.

  I gave an unwilling gasp and covered my eyes with my hand.

  "Now, I have to leave you, Viscount. Business, you see. It was nice knowing you," said Duke Talm with a rigid bow before he left the room. "Forgive me!"

  5

  THE DUKE was now gone, but his last word was still hanging in the air, and it was not at all to my liking. But what could I do? Nothing. Just sit and wait to see how this crazy story would end.

  The detective sergeant unbuttoned his rain-slicker, sat down in the armchair and set his revolver arm on the broad armrest, aiming the barrel at my chest.

  "Is this all really necessary?" I grimaced. "We're kind of in the same boat now, right? We're in this together!"

  "Silence!" the detective demanded; his yellow eyes looking unusually wicked.

  "Are you nervous?"

  "He'll manage."

  "And if he doesn’t?"

  "We'll die."

  "Such an outcome does not suit me."

  A contemptuous grimace crawled over his face.

  "Nothing will change for you in any case," the detective sergeant said. "The Duke is sentimental, but he's not senile. You are a threat. Threats are to be eliminated."

  "The Duke ordered you to shoot me?"

  The detective went silent, but the revolver barrel spoke more eloquently than any words.

  I leaned back in my chair and went silent. We were sitting and looking at one another like two card players trying to figure out who was bluffing, and who really had the upper hand.

  Had the red-mustached man really been ordered to shoot me, or was he trying to provoke me to reckless action? And if he really did consider me a threat, wouldn't he shoot me no matter what?

  The situation scared me with its uncertainty, but I didn't fall into hysterics. I calmly tossed one leg over the other and asked:

  "Has Senior Inspector Moran been showing heightened interest in you recently?"

  For a moment, the inspector's tough exterior started to crack. But before I managed to grab onto his sudden fear and set it alight with my illustrious talent, the detective sergeant had already gotten himself together.

  He was smiling carelessly and shaking his head.

  "No," he answered. But then, he couldn't help asking: "What did you hear?"

  "You should know better than me," I replied with a shrug of my shoulders. "When you copied those documents, you were aware how many other people had access to them."

  The investigator laughed:

  "Good try, but I know about your talent. You won’t be frightening me."

  Before dying from a heart attack, William Mathew thought the exact same thing, but I didn't bring that up, just started enumerating in a monotone voice:

  "The copy of the expert report on the contents of the Countess's safe deposit box; I found it on the old man in the warehouse. The photocopy of the picture confiscated from me, the photocopy of the picture from my uncle's effects; I found those on your Mathew. One to one odds, detective sergeant. One to one odds!"

  "Do you mean to say that you told Moran about those things?"

  "As soon as I could."

  The investigator jumped to his feet and exclaimed in rage:

  "You're lying!"

  "Why would I do that?" I smiled calmly. "I just suggest you think about the consequences and not do anything reckless. We can still end this all on good terms."

  "And why shouldn't I just shoot you right now?!" the detective sergeant cried out, starting to get worried. He pointed his issued revolver back at me.

  "What would that change? Nothing. But I, on the other hand, might lie to the senior inspector that I made it all up to defame you. He doesn't have the highest opinion of me. He'd believe it."

  "Hell no!" the investigator growled, and then the door behind him flew open. The detective sergeant turned around and jerked his revolver into position. Just then, I heard a quiet popping snap, and blood spilled onto my face.

  The detective, his head shot through, fell dead to the floor. I raised my arms in silence, not wanting to share his fate.

  "It's comforting to hear that you do not suffer any delusions in regards to my opinion of you," said Bastian Moran, continuing to hold me in the sights of his double-barrel gun, which had a bulbous barrel receiver and a little handle hanging down, making it look like a medieval crossbow with a crank. For the record, when it shot, it was total
ly silent.

  The senior inspector stepped aside, and heavily armed policemen started running into the room in steel helmets and cuirasses. They quickly fanned out, then Bastian Moran approached me and asked:

  "Where are the others?"

  "And just who..." I prattled out, immeasurably taken aback by the unexpected turn of events. "Just who did you expect to find here, senior inspector?"

  Bastian Moran's eyebrow snapped up high in surprise and he said significantly:

  "We came to arrest the gang responsible for the robbery of the Witstein Banking House. But if you were not kidnapped and are here of your own free will..."

  "I was kidnapped, I was kidnapped!" I immediately assured him. "I am here against my will. The detective sergeant told me the inspector general wanted to see me here."

  "And nothing made you think twice?"

  "I was too blown away by the honor of being invited to the inspector general's home!" I chuckled and ran my hand over my face; my fingers were caked in blood. "Also, it’d be nice if you stopped poking me with that thing, whatever it is."

  Bastian Moran extended a handkerchief and said:

  "It's an air gun. Indispensable for jobs that require silence."

  I cleaned off my face and returned the kerchief, but the senior inspector just winced fastidiously.

  "Throw it away!" he ordered.

  "It looks expensive..."

  "Viscount!" he snapped, having lost his patience. "Answer me at once. Where are the others!"

  "I have no idea," I confessed. "There was an elderly illustrious man here. He introduced himself as Duke Talm. There was also a coachman, but I didn't see him come inside."

  The senior inspector looked over the policemen, who’d taken position at the doors and windows. Moran pumped the lever of the air rifle a few times with strain, then pulled back the bolt and placed an elongated revolver bullet into the barrel.

  "I was hoping you’d have some more useful information," he grumbled. But as soon as I reached for the weapon of the late detective, he ordered: "Hands off!"

  "But why?"

  "Don't touch it, or I'll order you cuffed!"

  "If you say so," I said, stepping back from the detective sergeant's body. "Did you come in through the main entrance?"

  "Yes."

  "I was taken in through the back door. Last time I saw the Duke, he was heading that way."

  "Stay on me!" Bastian Moran ordered, and pointed the police to the second exit. "No noise!" he reminded the soldiers running past.

  To the clop of their heavy boots, the constables, armed with air guns and semi-automatic-carbines, lined up along the walls in anticipation of an order to go deeper into the manor. One of the sturdy fellows even had a hand-held Madsen machine gun over his shoulder; all of them, without exception, had a grenade pouch. The senior inspector had taken past errors into account and was not preparing to allow the robbers to outgun his division this time.

  I looked at the detective sergeant's body and couldn't resist an entirely irrelevant question:

  "Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

  "In the army," Bastian Moran answered, fairly perplexed by the question.

  His sophisticated appearance seemed to utterly preclude severe army bunks.

  The senior inspector stopped being distracted by me, and issued an order:

  "Move out!"

  The police ran out into the hallway and once again quickly fanned out along the wall to keep themselves out of their comrades' lines of fire. But, as it turned out, there was no one to shoot at, and the division slowly moved onward. The lights in the manor all flickered off, and our path was now lit only by the beams of portable torches.

  "You outmaneuvered me with the hypnotist," Bastian Moran suddenly recalled. "I arrested him, but it was you that brought the inspector general his confession."

  "What would it have cost you to head to the circus with me?"

  "I'll be invoicing you for the suit."

  "If you say so."

  At the intersection of two hallways, the police stopped and I pointed out:

  "The door into the back yard is up ahead."

  A mustached sergeant shone his light on the stairs and asked:

  "What's up there?"

  "I have no idea," I answered at half voice, not wanting to make a sound.

  My heart was sinking. I couldn't get the Duke's words out of my head about how an actual demon would soon be coming to lay claim to my soul. And I didn't have the miraculous electromagnetic-disturbance transmitter, or weapons, or anything.

  "What shall we do, senior inspector?" the sergeant clarified.

  "We're going into the back yard," Bastian decided.

  The police hurried down the hallway. I, meanwhile, caught up with the senior inspector and quietly whispered out:

  "The Duke believed a demon might be turning up here. I suggest you call for reinforcements."

  "Old wives' tales," the Department Three man said with a hand wave, not really listening.

  I suddenly heard a muted knock, a couple muffled blows, and a couple of constables dragged over a middle-aged man with his hands cuffed behind his back and a gag in his mouth.

  "This man was sitting in the footman's room," the sergeant said, jerking the man's head up by his long hair to reveal the face of his captive.

  Lit by the bright light of the electric torch, I saw a familiar face.

  "The coachman," I said.

  "Great!" Bastian Moran rejoiced. "Let's keep going through the first floor toward the back yard! Don't go outside!"

  Checking every room we came across along the way, we walked down the hall. And soon, a gallery led us into an abandoned botanical garden with dried out plants, but fully intact glass. It stuck out into an inner courtyard, surrounded by the gloomy walls of the manor; there was also a vehicle entrance through a gated archway.

  In the far corner of the yard, under the overhang, there were glowing electric bulbs. Through the glass wall, we could clearly make out the figures of a group of people getting up to something. So, the senior inspector immediately ordered:

  "Torches off!"

  But it was too late – one of them had noticed the suspicious glint on the glass of the orangery and pointed in our direction.

  "Don't shoot!" Moran whispered out, enraged by the blunder. "Take positions and await further orders!"

  The policemen quickly dispersed throughout the botanical garden and knelt behind barrels of dried out plants, but our patience was not rewarded. The vigilant sentry ran through the yard with his rifle held horizontally. The others started picking up their weapons. Meanwhile, I took note of a metal statue they were all crowded up around. I couldn't get a clear look, but something in it seemed strangely familiar...

  And then, the lookout froze stone-stiff and threw up his rifle. He aimed directly at me, and by some kind of inspiration, it occurred to me that, for some unfathomable reason, I must have been the only one he could see.

  Unfathomable? Dolt! Think about it! He could see my glowing eyes!

  I quickly slunk behind a tub of soil. A moment later, a shot clapped out. Shards of glass showered down. The barrel that took the brunt of it shuddered.

  A half a dozen officers fired a volley of bullets, knocking the lookout off his feet. And before his bullet-honeycombed body managed to collapse onto the rain-soaked ground, the criminals had fanned out throughout the yard, and were opening fire in return. Broken glass cascaded down into the greenhouse. Stray bullets whistled overhead, cutting down dried-out saplings and biting into the stone wall behind my back.

  The police surpassed the bandits not only in number, but also in training. They'd brought plenty of rounds, and the stone flowerbeds and tubs of soil provided incomparably better cover than the frames of half-destroyed carriages. Those two factors reduced the amount of return fire significantly before the firefight really managed to even get off the ground. Three of our opponents were shot in the first minute, while the others pinned themselves d
own to the earth and didn't dare peek out from behind their unsound shelter. Only one of the bandits managed to run into the house, and he was now pestering us with shots from a first story window.

  One of the constables hurriedly stuck a grenade onto the end of his carbine, loaded a blank and, with a sure shot, sent the explosive sailing across the whole yard. A blast rang out. The firing went quiet.

  "Now they won't get away!" said Bastian Moran, melting into a satisfied smile and shouting out: "The manor is surrounded! Surrender! Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up!"

  But then the metal statue under the awning started moving.

  It was huge, no smaller than three meters high. The human-like figure straightened up with a loud clank, and a pair of spotlights on its shoulders switched on.

  "What devilry is that?" one of the constables exhaled, and I agreed with him fully.

  It really was just that – devilry. The statue resembled an enlarged suit of medieval armor, but there was no man alive that could move while wearing such a heap of metal. Steel sheets covered the figure from all sides. There were black slits in the round helmet for eyes, and the arms ended in stumps. There were two electrodes protruding from one, and a hulking device made of crisscrossed copper wires attached to the other. Based on the ponderous barrel and long belt trailing from the back end, it was a machine-gun.

  The armored figure moved slightly, and I heard the crackling buzzing of an electric motor. But – curses! – there was no generator on earth that could fit inside that suit of armor and produce the requisite amount of energy!

  And then it occurred to me! Duke Talm was inside the armor suit.

  The spotlight beams on the figure's shoulders crawled over the ruined botanical garden, and the policemen's nerves gave out. Shots started clapping, bullets ricocheted off the steel sheet covering Talm’s chest, giving forth a hail of sparks, then the figure seemed to wake up. It raised the machine gun mounted on its arm, and a long burst of bullets came racing toward us, but the gun itself wasn't making any noise.

  The heavy bullets went right through the decorative flower beds, pots and tubs. Shards of ceramic flew in all directions, and my face was covered with a fine soil. Someone shouted out in pain. I heard a noise come off the wall behind us that sounded like someone was scraping it with a fine-toothed metal comb.